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  Quote Justinian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Latin
    Posted: 17-Nov-2005 at 00:05
I just started learning the latin language this semester (my high school didn't offer it) to all those fluent in latin my question is how long did it take you to learn latin?
"War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace."--Thomas Mann

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  Quote Jazz Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Nov-2005 at 03:56
Et tu?

Just kidding - I have not taken any lessons...
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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Nov-2005 at 04:35
I just took one course but it wasn't so dificult, specially if your mother tongue happen to be a Romance one.

English has a lot of atin influence, via French mostly, that should help too. The more languages you learn the easier the next one.

NO GOD, NO MASTER!
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  Quote tadamson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Nov-2005 at 11:30
Becomming flluent may take longer than you think..
You really need to practice talking a language and that's difficult for Latin.  There are quite a number of Latin web sites with news stories and fora that might help.
rgds.

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  Quote Imperator Invictus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Nov-2005 at 18:26
There are very very few people who are fluent in Latin. Those who are fluent in the U.S. tend to pronounce it with a "heavy American accent" - let's say.

Written Latin is a different matter. In this case, the language feels like a set of rules you have to follow. Its much different - Latin is based more on grammar than spoken sense.

I studied Latin for 5 years, 4 of which as part of my language of study in high school, so if you have any questions, I'll be glad to help you.



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  Quote Justinian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Nov-2005 at 20:29
That is one of the reasons I questioned taking latin (lack of people fluent in it), I definitely agree that it is easier to read and write than speak; especially when it comes to the latin pronunciation of names-Juilius Caesar etc.  I've got a question regarding vocabulary, what it the best way to remember words i.e. amount of time to spend, how many times to go through the words.
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  Quote Imperator Invictus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Nov-2005 at 20:43
There are definate benefits to taking latin. It allows you to appreciate grammar, etymology, languages, and Roman culture better, although I thought that at a high school level, not everyone was dedicate enough for this benefit to show.

Latin pronunciation is usualy messed up. There are three main schools of pronunciation: Classical (early and late), medieval ("church" latin), and modern english pseudo-latin. For example Julius Caesar was prounced in classial latin as You-lius Kai-sahr with a rolling r. If you decide to go through with latin, you'll find people constantly "mispronouncing" latin words when speaking in english.

For vocab, the best way I found to memorize vocab is to relate it to simliar looking english words.
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  Quote Justinian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Nov-2005 at 21:06
Yes, I certainly have a better appreciation for sentence structure and grammar.  Learning just a little latin has really improved my understanding of English, considering 2/3 of the english language is made of latin words through french influence.  My goal is to become fluent in latin, then hopefully move on to romance languages.
"War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace."--Thomas Mann

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  Quote ambiorix Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Nov-2005 at 22:20

hi,

I am fairly fluent, and do not have the heavy american accent as much as most folks.  If you come to a reenactment I would be happy to converse with you, also, one of our romans is 100% fluent in every part of latin, he studied at least 10 years for it. Do not get frustrated, especially if your professor is some crusty old guy, just keep studying.  Read some dirty plays too, plautus is good.

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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2005 at 00:34
Originally posted by Justinian

My goal is to become fluent in latin, then hopefully move on to romance languages.


You may prefer to start with Romance languages such as Spanish, which offer several advantages:
  • You can practice it easily (just jump to Mexico or Puerto Rico... or Harlem)
  • The structure of vowels in Spanish is much closer to that of Latin than the English (chaotic) system. Once you learn how to pronounce well the five vowels in Spanish, Latin pronunciation (though a little diferent, specially due to long vowels) should be a lot easier. Much of the vocabulary is also simmilar as happen with verbal conjugations too. Spanish also has the strong R found in Latin.
The main problem could be to mess Spanish and Latin if you study them at the same time, as they are definitively diferent for some important stuff, specially declinations, something Romance languages lack.

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  Quote Justinian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2005 at 14:52
I thought about that but went with latin because I figured it might be easier to learn the "mother" language first then learn descendents of it like spanish, french etc.  Hope it works both ways.
"War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace."--Thomas Mann

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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2005 at 15:36

Salve,

yes, it will work both ways. 

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  Quote Justinian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2005 at 15:43

Salve, 

I am looking forward to reading works in the original latin, what would be best for a beginner?

"War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace."--Thomas Mann

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  Quote tadamson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Nov-2005 at 21:53
Originally posted by Justinian

Salve, 

I am looking forward to reading works in the original latin, what would be best for a beginner?



Ceaser...................   all of his stuff!
rgds.

      Tom..
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  Quote Byzantine Emperor Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Nov-2005 at 22:11
I took three years of Latin in high school and took upper level reading classes all through out undergraduate school.  After reading Annals Book IV of Tacitus in a college course I began to feel more comfortable in just following along and reading a text.  The main thing you should do is stick with the language and take a course every semester or quarter.  If you get rusty it takes for ever to get back to where you were at before.  Also, if you do pretty well in Latin, definitely learn Greek when you get the chance because it will be a lot easier.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Nov-2005 at 09:54
I've got 6 years of Latin on my school, but still I barely speak it.

I think that is mostly because we only got Latin-Dutch, and only translations. It may sound silly, but I think I would have spoken it a lot better if Latin was taught like modern languages, with conversations and such.
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  Quote Justinian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Nov-2005 at 23:53

Hopefully latin will go well and then I can move on to romance languages and greek.  I agree with you about getting rusty, I took spanish for 5 years and was close to fluency, I stopped taking it 4 years ago and now I can barely understand a basic conversation. 

I agree with you mixcoatl, I learned spanish a lot quicker by doing conversations and such than just translations.  Thankfully we practice a lot with conversations in my latin class.



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"War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace."--Thomas Mann

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  Quote LeopoldPhilippe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jul-2015 at 20:24
The term "Latin Mass" is frequently used to denote the Tridentine Mass, that is, the Roman-Rite liturgy of the Mass celebrated in Latin and in accordance with the successive editions of the Roman Missal published between 1570 and 1962.
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  Quote Iolo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Nov-2015 at 08:15
The fact that no-one except some RC priests ever uses Latin in normal conversation makes for problems.   When I was in school Cymraeg ('Welsh') and Latin were taught equally badly, but I now speak the former fairly fluently, whereas I have my work very much cut out to read even the easiest Catullus (my favourite Latin poet) or run a whole serious sentence together, though I have been attending evening classes for years.    The fact that it is an inflected language makes problems for English-speakers, but the lack of talk seems crucial.   It suits grammar-wonks.
Gobeithiaw y ddaw ydd wyf.
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Nov-2015 at 10:03
As someone who still has trouble with my native lang. which is English, I envy anyone who can learn and use other languages.

My mother could read latin. When she was young she could converse in it.

Up until the early 50's latin was taught in High schools here.

As for Welsh, my grandfather was welsh. The only welsh I ever heard him speak was probably not"nice".
As for me learning any of it, forget it.
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
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